


another place and time (if only)

by blackorchids



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Eleanor Is A Good Friend, F/M, Freddie Is A Tomlinson, Gen, Honesty, Light Angst, Louis Tomlinson Loves Harry Styles, M/M, Missing Scene, Multi, Unrequited Love, babygate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 06:09:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20130619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: Eleanor visits Louis after Freddie is born.





	another place and time (if only)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this when “babygate” was happening and I just found it again, so,,,,here you go, I guess
> 
> Title from the Clean Bandit song, _Baby_

“I heard we’re not meant to be socializing together,” Eleanor says as she steps into the modest entryway of the condo, her hard-backed Louis Vuitton luggage dragging along behind her. “In honor of the lawsuit.”

Louis deigns to look up from where he’s watching his son hungrily gulp down formula to give her a judgemental look, and Eleanor cannot help but arch a perfect eyebrow and smirk a little meanly at him.

“A father in trouble with the law,” she says, because Eleanor has been trying to get him to swear in front of his son since the first day he got to hold him, a mere three days after his birth, one of many things he tries very hard not to resent Briana for.

“That was an honest article,” he says, relatively convincingly. Eleanor has known him for near on half a decade, though, and that means that she knows how he lies.

“More honest than anything else doesn't really say much when everything else is a load of shite.” She doesn't apologize for swearing, either, just leaves her luggage in the hall, as though she thinks he’s her housekeeper, and saunters into the kitchen, most likely to set the kettle on.

Freddie finishes his bottle and smacks his lips together in distaste when he realizes there isn't any more formula coming through. His dummy is nowhere to be found, either, so Louis sticks a finger in between his lips to substitute, letting his little man gnaw on it while he gets up to rinse the bottle and find a cold teething ring in the icebox.

“Everyone who didn't side with you is pissed,” Eleanor says when he gets Freddie settled, teething ring abandoned and replaced with the corner of a tiny plastic piano. The sitting room is airy and child-proofed, and Eleanor has brought out the entire kettle and a full box of awful American teabags so they can stay sitting in one place and keep an eye on Freddie at the same time. “Even some of the people who picked you in the divorce are annoyed.”

“For different reasons, though,” Louis counters, mostly to be contrary. He’d known that article would be taken poorly, particularly that comment about Harry, even though he’d been fond when he’d said it. Harry simply had the most fans from the breakup, and there was something about him that made people feel like they had to protect him.

Louis was intimately familiar with that quality, and most days he couldn't exactly blame the thirty million teenaged girls who’d been drawn in by the same quality he’d been drawn in by back in 2010.

“How about you say something completely truthful,” Eleanor suggests, leaning back into the squishy arm of the couch and sipping at her tea, joking judgement erased from her features. “Just for you and me and the kid to hear. One thing.”

It should be easy, but he knows she's not looking for some pansy-ass cop-out remark, and Louis has gotten very good at being dishonest without lying in all of his years of superstardom. The mere thought of saying something out loud without any second meaning, without irony, without the intention to manipulate, has his breath coming quicker, his chest feeling tight.

It would make a great song, for his second album, if the first isn't a complete flop.

“I'll go first,” El says, because she's secretly a good best mate. “Sometimes I want to just scream _the word you're looking for is bisexuality_ at people.”

“Maybe get a shirt,” Louis says, like he hasn't had the exact same thought a million times or more. Like being in love with his best friend invalidated being in love with Eleanor or his attraction to any of the other girls he’s dated.

Eleanor cocks her head, drags a slim, well-manicured fingertip around the rim of the expensive bone-china teacup she prefers over his regular thick, drop-proof ceramic mugs. “Maybe I'll go second, too,” she muses, dark eyes intent on him.

“Have at it, then,” he says, half desperate to hear her give out another of his truths, half desperate to come up with one he can stomach saying on his own.

The even tone of her voice and her sedate expression are deliberate. He’s already swallowing tightly when she finally opens her mouth.

“I would have married you.”

_I know_, Louis doesn't say. Everything about his relationship with Eleanor had been a disaster, from the very first date, arranged in an effort to play nice straight boy Definitely Not In Love With Male Roommate, like the label had _suggested, not demanded_. Had realized he loved her five thousand miles away from her. Had broken up with her when he thought he might love her as much as he loved Harry.

“Your turn.” She says, odd expression gone from her face, like he’d reacted differently than she’d expected. He hopes he's not disappointed her again, but Eleanor won't even admit he’d disappointed her the first time, so he’ll never know.

“I wish I had sole custody of Freddie,” he says, because it's the easiest of many difficult things to say.

“I hated my uni,” Eleanor counters. “But I had to graduate so that no one could call me a gold digger.”

“I haven't bought Zayn’s album.”

Eleanor’s curled up now, instead of sprawled across her half of the couch, her legs crossed and her back hunched forward a little. She hesitates before speaking. “I thought about suggesting a poly thing with you.” Her eyes flicker away, but Eleanor has always been better about verbalizing things she’s sorry for thinking. “You and me and Harry.”

“I think Liam and Cheryl rushed into having a child,” Louis replies, shutting his brain off from lingering on and considering any of what she’d said.

Eleanor looks sad now, as exhausted as he feels, and he remembers that the One Direction brand had drained her as much as any of the rest of them.

“When Harry said he wanted the band to split up,” Louis says, before she has to think of something else to confess. “I was so relieved.”

And it's not like what he’d said in the article wasn't true: they _had_ fought about it, and he _had_ pushed to stay together. He’s still smarting that Niall and Liam had more or less refused to express an opinion about it, had let Harry and Louis have it out, fighting over the band and the brand and never saying what the real problem was, as was their specialty. But when Harry had first brought it up, in a hotel room that still felt their fifth member’s absence, Louis’ first, kneejerk reaction had been _thank god_.

And that's just the real kicker, isn't it?

Eleanor goes along with him when he has to drop Freddie at Briana’s mum’s on Tuesday, giving everyone she makes eye contact with some of her best scornful looks, curling her lip behind her oversized designer shades, tilting her head dismissively, deliberately letting out the world's worst fake laugh when Freddie’s grandmum makes some weak joking remark.

She follows him back into his terrible LA condo, herding him into his bedroom and onto his bed, curling up beside him and yanking up the duvet around them so they can stare at each other in the relative dimness that the thick blue fabric provides.

“Did you intentionally come off as the victim in that article?” She whispers when she's decided they’ve stared silently at each other for far too long.

“Did you hate me for Larry?” He replies, because he knows the answer to his question just as well as she knows the answer to hers.

In short, _yes_. But it's more complicated than a short answer.

Louis shifts in clumsy, obvious movements, turning first into his back and then rolling into his other side, so that he can poke his head out and stare aimlessly out of the window. Soon enough, Eleanor scoots close to him and wraps an arm around his middle, tucking her face into the nape of his neck.

He can feel her breathing against his back, can feel her fingers fisting and unfisting around the fabric of his slouchy tee-shirt. Tries to count in his head how many things he wants to say out loud, doesn't think science has yet invented a high enough number.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr!


End file.
